• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.267-290
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to analyze the writing tasks included in the newly developed high school English textbooks in the aspects of genre, rhetorical structure, task type, and authenticity in order to find out whether these tasks could contribute to improving Korean EFL students' writing skills. A total of nine textbooks were selected for the study and every writing task in each textbook was analyzed. The results show that various types of genres were incorporated in the tasks, but very few opportunities were provided for students to acquire characteristics of specific genres. In terms of rhetorical structure of text, narration, illustration, and transaction were required most, whereas not a single writing task asked students to use classification or cause and effect. Many of the writing tasks analyzed offered linguistic and/or content support through the use of models, which displays traces of the product-based approach to teaching writing. Lastly, most of the tasks lacked authenticity represented by explicit discussion of purpose and audience. Implications for L2 writing task development and writing instruction in the Korean EFL context are discussed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.509-519
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• 2017

This study addresses the effective utilization of film music as learning material for language, target culture, and ethics education. Music is intertwined with language and culture, and even with ethics. This study focuses on the potential power of film music in the processes of teaching and learning in a classroom. For this purpose, five songs are selected from the soundtrack of Disney's famous animation The Lion King: "Circle of life", "I just can't wait to be king", "Be prepared", "Hakuna Matata", and "Can you feel the love tonight?", and concrete learning activities are suggested based on these. Using these five songs, gap-filling and singing-recoding tasks are proposed as listening and speaking activities respectively. Film music is also very useful in learning vocabulary, sentence structure, and grammar. Learners participate in a writing activity involving creating their own lyrics for the tunes reflecting their experiences. Next, for culture education, a teacher asks their students to discuss about, and be aware of, food culture using a specific character's song. Finally, for ethics education, a philosophy of life, natural logic, leadership qualities, and the motto Hakuna Matata("no worries") are explored and discussed through an analysis of the lyrics. The open-ended questionnaire survey is conducted. The result shows that music has a positive effect on culture and ethics education. Film music can be effective in learning a second language, target culture, and ethics.